2 Darkness(First Person POV)

'What happened? Where am I?' My mind hurt and my memory failed me. I couldn't see anything in front of me, so I tried to feel my way by using my hands. I wasn't laying on a bed or sitting down, instead, I stood straight. "Agh!" I clutched my head in a hurry as waves of pain surged through it. I started shaking and sweating as I had no idea what was going on in this place. Fear took over me. I couldn't help it since I was in a situation where I didn't even know if I was alive or dead. My sense of direction was all over the place thanks to this darkness. Was it the ground that I touched with my feet or something else, I didn't know.

Some bits of my memory resurfaced along with the pain. I remembered the accident that happened between the bus and the truck, and then I remembered John who was next to me at the time.

"John! Joooohn!!" I couldn't stop myself from shouting. I was glad to hear my own voice being so loud. It would have been even worse if I couldn't hear or talk on top of being blind. The thought of me being surrounded by some animals, or even worse monsters, only crossed my mind after I shouted. I thought about stopping but I couldn't. John was the only person that I considered family and I didn't want to be separated from him.

"Jooohn!" I continued to shout for a bit while walking ahead. I didn't even know if I even walked for a long time, or only for a couple of seconds. I heard the sound of clothes moving near me, so I called out once more. "John is that you?!"

"Henry? Where are we? What's going on?!" A female voice responded to my voice instead of John.

"Alice? You were in the bus…?" A terrible sensation went through my heart as I realized Alice was here as well. John and I could take care of ourselves, but Alice was too innocent to suffer through this. On top of that, she had a family waiting for her.

'The orphanage!' As I thought about Alice's family, the orphanage, Miss Mary, and the birthday children flashed through my head. "What will they do?!" I muttered these words with worry as I thought about their lack of money. The happiness that we should have brought for them would not happen unless we were to find a way out of this.

"Henry?" I snapped out of my thoughts as Alice's tearful voice resounded in my ears. I realized that she must be worried sick, even more than me.

"Come close to my voice, Alice. We need to stay together." I continued to shout 'here' while she approached me. Once I felt that her presence was close enough, I extended my hand and caught hers.

"How long has it been since you woke up?" I asked her to see if the same thing happened with her as with me. She didn't react to me calling John until just now.

"I just woke up." I was stunned by her answer, and I'm sure my face would have shown it if there was light.

"You remembered everything as soon as you woke up?" I asked her in a hurry as I wanted to know why she could remember and not me. I could only remember my name when I woke up, and yet she seemed like she knew everything.

"I did. Is there something wrong?!" Alice asked while clutching her hands. I could feel her worry through her sweating palms.

"No, it's nothing," I answered her as I continued to think. We also started walking and calling for John. We couldn't tell the time, but we didn't stop.

"Hello?!" We heard a muffled voice respond to our calling and we responded right back. This voice belonged to John after all.

"John!" I didn't let go of Alice, but I quickened my pace towards the voice.

"Damn it, Henry! I was afraid I'd never see your dead eyes again!" Even in this situation, John didn't forget to tease me about my eyes. Still, I felt glad to see that he remembered me.

"When did you wake up, John?" I asked him in order to see if he was similar to me or to Alice.

"A couple of minutes. I started searching for you and heard a voice calling me. I wasn't sure at first, so I had to respond with hello. It would be silly if it turned out to be a ghost calling me.

"So, you remembered everything from the start?" I still asked him further to see if he was similar to Alice.

"Yeah, why? Did you have amnesia when you woke up?"

"Yes man. I had a severe headache before I could remember some stuff." I explained to him while Alice remained silent next to us. I'm not sure of John even know about her being with me.

"Hmm. Maybe it's because you got hit in the head by the bus? I don't know how we're still alive, but I'm glad." John brought up an interesting point. I was indeed hit by the rolling bus in the head. I'm not sure who it is that saved us, but he must have had a lot to do to fix me up. I touched my neck as I thought about my head being crushed.

"Anyway, Alice is here too. I want us to not be separated from each other, so give me your hand." As I expected, John didn't know about Alice. I heard him mutter, 'Eh?!' before closing in on me. He went silent for a little, so I'm sure he was thinking the same thing as I did earlier concerning Alice.

"Alice, how many people were on the bus?" I asked her while we continued moving. We didn't make much progress since we could barely move one step at a time.

"Including me, there should have been ten people. Eleven if you count the driver." As Alice answered me, we heard a sobbing voice. We called out to it, and it seemed to be one of our classmates called Hana.

"Alice?!" Hana seemed to ignore both me and John and called out to Hana directly. We were to such treatment from our schoolmates so we didn't bother with her at all. We asked Hana about her situation, which wasn't much different, and then moved on. She latched herself on Alice's arms and walked at an even slower pace than us.

We did this two more times, and it was two male students. One was a classmate of ours, and one a schoolmate. 'We only need to find five more people.' I thought to myself as we walked ahead. I'm sure we looked like we were playing a kids' game, with us holding hands.

[It seems like everyone has woken up.]

A voice sounded in what seemed the entire area. Hana screamed while our hearts started beating a lot faster than normal. The voice was similar to a machine's synthetic voice. It was devoid of any and all emotions and seemed neither androgynous.

We waited for another sentence to be said, but we only saw a light appear from what to be 50 meters away from our position. We walked close to it while calculating the danger with every step. It was still better than our current situation without any light. We stood next to the light for a while, and we could hear footsteps coming closer. One person appeared after the other until the four remaining students appeared.

"Liz, Camie!" Hana broke off from Alice's arms after noticing that two of the four students were her friends. The other two were a girl and a boy and seemed to know the two that were with us.

Their names are André, Jake, Paul, and the school's top student, Aarifa. We waited for a while for the driver to show up, but he never did. As soon as I thought something was wrong, the voice sounded again.

[As you know, you have died.] The voice's sentence seemed to be a surprise to some people as if they couldn't believe it.

[You will be teleported to another world that used a summoning ritual. Since you're being taken forcibly, you will get to choose one wish. Step into the light one by one.] The sound seemed to turn off as we looked at each other.

"What about the driver?" I asked out of concern for his safety, but I got nothing in response. I could only take it as he will not show up.

"Nothing will happen with us standing here. I'm stepping into the light." André spoke and walked there. His large athlete build and bushy hair disappeared. The light kept flickering for a while, and then it returned to normal. It was telling us that it was someone else's turn.

Jake and Paul walked up and took turns. The two of them were like twins as they had blond hair and blue eyes. Even their facial features were similar. They seemed to be best friends as they were always together in school, similar to me and John.

Aarifa had shoulder length hair that was put in twin tails. She looked like the modal student with her round glasses. She followed after the two of them.

Liz, Camie, and Hana were the typical high school girls. Long conditioned hair, long nails, and the latest fashion clothes. Camie had braces due to her teeth not being lines up. They went one after the other. Only us three remained.